Omnath, Locus of Mana Commander Deck

Commander Format

One of Magic: The Gathering's most popular modes, Commander (EDH) format, tasks players with picking a legendary creature to lead their 100-deck army. You can only include cards with colors matching your Commander's colors. Unlike other play styles, just one copy of each card (basic lands excluded) is allowed.

This diversifies clashes by guaranteeing you'll see something new with each game and makes deckbuilding even more immersive. As someone who has played hundreds of EDH battles, I often employ the green-hued Omnath, Locus of Mana. Let's tackle the strengths for my own interpretation of the classic Omnath EDH deck!

Omnath, Locus of Mana | Source

Omnath, Locus of Mana

AttributesFirst things first. Omnath mono-color restricts your deck to green and colorless cards, but that's more than enough for the ramp and behemoths you'll need. Additionally, he only costs three mana—making a turn 2 appearance very possible if you're able to prepare a mana-tapping creature on turn 1.

First EffectOmnath may look weak, with only 1 Power and 1 Toughness, but consider his impressive boons. First, green mana never empties from your pool as phases and turns end! This means your leftover resources aren't wasted, which drastically helps you cast your game-changers early on.

Second EffectAs if that wasn't enough, Omnath gets +1/+1 for each green mana in your pool. He'll soon strengthen to double digits, making him nearly impossible to topple without instant-kills, and if he gets access to trample (several cards in our deck aid with this), a win condition through commander damage becomes highly likely.

Of course, Omnath needs to stay alive to keep his effects active. The deck incorporates various methods to keep him around, like shroud and protection, and slips in some malicious surprises. We'll get to those soon.

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Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury | Source

Garruk, Caller of Beasts

Planeswalkers

1 Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury 1 Garruk, Caller of Beasts

This is a creature-central deck, limiting the number of planeswalkers that should be included, but these cards are just too tempting to ignore. Looking at Freyalise, she'll arrive for a mere five mana and can produce a mana-tapping token each turn. As a bonus, the tokens belong to the Elf tribe, superbly complementing the Elf-based creatures below. Additionally, her minus two is a reusable artifact/enchantment removal, one of few in the deck.

One of our upcoming creatures (Nissa, Vastwood Seer) can also potentially transform into a planeswalker.

Here are the "weaker" creatures of the deck. Most can tap for mana, a few can tap for extra draws, and several only cost a single mana to play. Some become stronger based on how many Elves you control (Priest of Titania), and others (Norwood Priestess) can tap to summon a creature from your hand without paying!

As you'll soon see, the deck contains an abundance of lands. To help get them onto the field quickly, Oracle of Mul Daya lets you see and play lands from the top of your deck while granting an extra land per turn. This lets you ramp faster and save your draws for non-lands.

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Kozilek, Butcher of Truth

Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre

Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger

Creatures (Powerhouses)

Omnath himself will quickly become fierce, but the deck contains several other titans to bulldoze through enemies. These guys cost considerable mana, but brandish amazing effects. For instance, Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger limits your opponent's mana use while boosting yours and Thunderfoot Baloth gives other creatures trample. To play these heavy hitters, either use free-creature abilities, like those of Norwood Priest and Defense of the Heart, or simply ramp until you can afford their costs.

Examining the above Kozilek, we see that casting him lets you draw four cards, and he joins as a formidable 12/12 garguantuan. Even better, his annhilator ability forces opponents to sacrifice four permanents whenever he attacks. This should rapidly eliminate opposing creatures, enchantments, and lands, even indestructible ones.

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Sword of Feast and Famine

Sword of the Animist

Sword of Fire and Ice

Artifacts

Nearly all our artifacts are equipments to further strengthen our creatures. They're relatively cheap, costing a bit to cast and a bit more to equip. The swords offer protection from various colors, Lightning Greaves grants both haste and shroud, and Ring of Kalonia gives trample while gradually strengthening its equipped creature.

My favorite has to be the nasty Sword of Feast and Famine. In addition to providing +2/+2 and protection from black and green, it bestows two additional effects upon damaging your opponent. First, they must discard, and second, your lands untap, ready to retap and strengthen Omnath even further!

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Bear Umbra

Defense of the Heart

Zendikar Resurgent

Enchantments

Our enchantments vary greatly in mana costs (cheaper are listed first) and provide a plethora of effects. From extra lands (Exploration) to extra draws (Sylvan Library) to free creatures (Defense of the Heart), there are plenty of ramping and card-advantage goodies here to exploit.

Let's review the boons of the aura Bear Umbra, which, for four mana, attaches to any creature; Omnath's a good candidate. When the creature attacks, all your lands untap (immediately tap them to boost Omnath)! Additionally, the creature gets +2/+2 and totem armor, which basically means Umbra will take a hit for its master, granting its bearer a superb defense.

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Genesis Wave

Skyshroud Claim

Mwonvuli Acid-Moss

Instants/Sorceries

The deck focuses on permanents, but we employ a few surprises with our one-off cards. Many, such as Skyshroud Claim, simply play extra lands from the deck or increase your ramping effectiveness. Triumph of the Hordes gives your creatures +1/+1, trample, and infect for a turn, accessing a potential poison counter win.

One of the most devastating sorceries in the game, Genesis Wave, turns your extra mana into a near-certain win. It costs three mana plus X more, where X is the number of cards it'll reveal from the top of your deck and place onto the field for each less than or equal to X in value. Thanks to Omnath and ramping, X can easily be 20 or more, letting you place a staggering amount of permanents at once. Get off a Wave with X as 12 or more, and the game is probably over.

Mosswort Bridge

Lands

1 Nykthos Shrine to Nyx 1 Mosswort Bridge 42 Forest

As a single-colored deck, you won't have to worry about drawing the wrong type of land. Your basic Forests run rampant, plus a few small surprises, like Nykthos, which can potentially double your mana reserves.

Mosswort Bridge lets you examine four cards from the top of your deck, store one for later, and cast it for free when your creatures have 10 or more total Power. Thanks to Omnath's mana-strengthening, this shouldn't take long, and you'll soon be brandishing a formidable spell for free!

Have you ever used an Omnath deck?

Overview

Strengths

Incredible Ramp

Plentiful Lands

Powerful Creatures

Potential Commander Damage and Poison Counter Wins

This deck should compete in even top-tier matches with its rapid mana gain and formidable commander. Ramping lets you draw and play cards before most opponents can properly defend, and various cards protect your creatures from harm. Plus, you shouldn't need many mulligans thanks to the saturation of lands, and alternative win methods beyond traditional life depletion are viable.

Weaknesses

Few removals

No flying creatures

Hard to bypass protection from green

No deck is perfect. Green has always struggled to combat flying beasts, which cannot be blocked by non-flying creatures. Additionally, your removal options are limited, although opponents will often have to sacrifice creatures to block life-depleting hits. Finally, watch out for protection from green, which will delay your assault; use the colorless Eldrazi to overcome this.

Primordial Titan

Duel Commander and EDH Ban Lists

As I much as I love Commander, most of my friends and I agree that some overpowered cards slipped through the ban list (looking at you, Sol Ring and Mana Drain). To this end, we construct decks that are both Commander and Duel Commander legal (as of this writing); when you combine the two lists, you tend to have less whining from opponents.

Thus, feel free to use my deck in either format, but if you're only utilizing the Duel Commander list, you may wish to reinstate Primordial Titan and the like. Same principle goes for using just the EDH bans.

Finally, while Omnath should more than hold his own, he doesn't harness any "infinite" combos, qualifying the build for infinite-free battles. Check below for an overview of the deck, click here to find your own Omnath, and I'll see you at our next Magic review!

Questions & Answers

Question:

I'm a new Magic player. This deck peaked my interest. How much does it run for in the financial department?

Answer:

I wouldn't be surprised if buying every card in this deck (remember, EDH builds need 100 total) ran you over $150. Typically, the better the card, the higher the cost, and these guys are pretty competitive.

However, you have options. Do you plan to play competitively? If not, your local game group and/or friends might let you use proxies, or printed version of cards. Proxies can't be used in official games, and some players might not appreciate their inclusion, but they grant you access to any card for free in casual matches.

There's also the online route to avoid having to buy physical copies. Feel free to check out my review of the UnTap server, a free-to-use browser that lets players (who have some patience) play for no cost at any time.

Comments

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sending

AUTHOR

Jeremy Gill

9 months agofrom Louisiana

@Phrzn

Thanks for the tips, and you're welcome! I almost included a Side Deck containing ideas for other useful cards, but the article was lengthy enough as is, making me table the idea for the time being.

Staff of Domination's tap effect could form a potential infinite-mana combo with Titania, or perhaps better yet, Karametra's Acolyte. Definitely an idea to consider.

Phrzn

9 months ago

I'm planning to update my Omnath deck which I played a few years ago for a while and this really helped. There are plenty of new green cards which seem really powerful with Omnath, I see you included Lifecrafter's Bestiary, but there is also Rhonas or Vizier of Menagerie for example. There are 2 lands which I find are paramount to an Omnath deck, Winding Canyons and Yavimaya Hollow, which help protect/recast Omnath in case of removal. For flyers I usually include a Hornet Queen in the deck which does wonders, and a pet card of mine that I include in almost all my green decks is Genesis to get back value creatures like Solemn Simulacrum. Apparently Staff of Domination is not banned in any commander format but I dunno if you have enough elves to consistently combo it with Priest of Titania.

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